With the advent of overhauling or even shutting of failing schools there is a clear need for removing teachers who are most underperforming. A logical adjunct to this approach is to duplicate the performance of the most effective teachers. In the conventional approach a video camera is used to record the teacher giving a lecture. The recorded lecture is then distributed to remote classrooms where the students watch the recorded lecture on a TV monitor. Alternatively, the lecture may be captured by video camera and broadcast live to remote classroom TV monitors in real time. In either case, image quality is often inadequate. Although the students can see the image of the teacher speaking, it is often difficult to make out what the teacher has written on the board (whiteboard, blackboard or chalkboard) and similarly difficult to see software generated images (e.g., slide shows, video clips, etc.) being displayed at the teacher's location.
Simply increasing the resolution of the video camera to better render this difficult-to-see material does not adequately solve the problem. First, increasing resolution means increasing bandwidth requirements, which may not be practical or cost effective. Second, during the live recording session the teacher may inadvertently block the board or slide presentation as he or she speaks, preventing that information from being captured by the video camera.